A couple weeks ago now, NPR ran a short piece that featured the Musical Instrument Museum (the MIM). Ted Robbins quotes director Bill DeWalt noting that the museum is, ironically, “one of the most quiet museums you’ll ever be in.” The reason is that the sound samples illustrating the instruments are heard on headphones. This is the trend in musical museums, I believe, and it matches what I experienced five years ago at the Czech Museum of Music in Prague. Headphones and digital files are certainly one of the amazing technologies that offer a better experience to musical instrument museums!

Last year, when the MIM opened, however, Edward Rothstein was a bit more critical in his New York Times review. Comparing the museum to a “department store” because of its size and architecture, the criticism seemed to be that the collection is too large and lacks a focus in display:

Think of instruments, too, as a kind of raw material that you are confronted with as you walk through the expansive exhibit spaces of this $250 million museum. It is material that the institution celebrates, promotes and sometimes illuminates, and it makes the museum of immediate interest. But the possibilities, for now, are more compelling than the achievements.

Though I saw the museum before its exhibits were fully mounted (and obtained images, text and plans for what was missing), the impact of this institution is in its size, nerve and astonishing quality and character of parts of its collection. But it seems unfinished in ways that should be examined.

In any case, I want to go to the museum, and I encourage anybody in Phoenix to check it out! Have you been? What do you think?

“It’s now taken for granted that the things we do online are reflections of who we are or announcements of who we wish to be.” Yet, “what we do online still feels somehow novel and ephemeral, although it really shouldn’t anymore” (writes Rob Walker in the NYTimes).

Yet, writes Sherry Turkle, “Just because we grew up with the Internet, we think the Internet is all grown up.” But it’s still developing. There’s also the evocative nature of computers and digital tech: we feel that they means more than the sum of their individual parts, in fact creating emotional connections (and not just addictions). (Listen to her interview on Here and Now.)

And while looking around the blog, imagine my surprise when I noticed that there’s more than just my blog listed on the wordpress tag page for idiophones (cue: Hornbostel-Sachs rejoicing). Most fun, though, are the Hang videos from Dante Bucci, like this “Fanfare”:

I recently caught a profile of the duo Būke and Gāss on NPR. There are many wonderful new groups and recordings out there, but this one caught my ear because of the emphasis on handcrafted, fusion instruments that are the duo’s hallmark. Their name, in fact, is based on hybrid instrument names!

Gāss: a guitar that includes bass strings (and it’s also made from body parts of an old Volvo!)

Hence the group’s name. They also include other homegrown originals, such as the “toe-bourine” (at right). The style is also a bit eclectic, described on WNYC’s Soundcheck as “ornate distorto-twang.” They hail from Brooklyn and, to hazard a guess, fit into the urban hillbilly mode (or perhaps what Eric Cook calls home mode production).

Just noticed this beautiful post about the charango, a small South American lute. A nice YouTube clip, but topped off with the most amazing picture of an action figure above a giant-looking charango. Worth a click!

If you’re taking a world music course, you may have had to learn the names of lots of musical instruments. (And, as likely as not, you may have learned all those lovely Hornbostel-Sachs designations as well. Oy.) One that offers no end of trouble to English-speakers is the mrdangam.

So, here’s something to practice: say “mrdangam” five times fast.

(It has three syllables: the mrd combination actually creates a bit of its own syllable, which is uncommon in English but helps a lot with the pronunciation.)

Digital accordion virtuoso Cory Pesaturo was interviewed this afternoon by Robin Young on Here and Now. (To listen, click here.) It’s a wonderful interview that will change the way you listen to accordion. (Not just polka anymore…) All performers of lesser-known instruments might sympathize. Here’s a few youtube clips that show just a bit of variety, starting with Pesaturo.